Before I jump into the rest of this blog post, I’d love for you to save the dates for April 17-21. During this week, NCAN will host at least one webinar a day organized around the idea that everyone in a school has a role to play in students’ college and career readiness. Postsecondary pathways aren’t just a school counselor’s focus, or a teacher’s focus, or a principal’s focus. Every caring adult in a school, as well as external partners, parents, and students themselves, have a role to play.
Our webinar lineup will examine topics like helping students reach different kinds of college and career pathways, how to build a college and career readiness team, and what kinds of frameworks are useful for understanding what students should know and experience. Is your interest piqued? We hope so. Full details are coming soon, but giving us your name and email here will make sure we get you more information and an invite ASAP!
Onto this post’s main business. Lots of districts and schools want to improve their college and career readiness efforts. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel! There’s not a one-size-fits-all solution, but you can often benefit from taking a look at someone else’s wheel and figuring out a way to make it work for you.
I’ve pulled some blog post from NCAN’s blog that focus on different aspects of college and career advising. These are mostly from a high school context, but some also feature K-12 and community-based partnerships. Have questions? As always, I’d love to hear from you. You can reach me at debaunb@ncan.org, and I hope you’ll reach out!
- Hear from Peers: NCAN-Served Districts Offer Advice for K-12 CCR Efforts: During our To & Through Advising Challenge, NCAN worked with 20 school district across the country on how to level up their college and career readiness work. This post includes some of their best advice.
- A 'Warp Speed' Spring and Summer: Fit and Match and Combating Melt in Springfield: Advising students on their postsecondary options through the concepts of “fit” and “match” is important. So is freezing summer melt so students actually matriculate when they intend to. This post from Springfield Public Schools has the actual materials the district used to adopt fit and match concepts and strategies to prevent summer melt.
- How Sending Letters Helped Sacramento's Students Find the Right College: Speaking of fit and match, Sacramento Unified School District helped students think about their college options by sending customized letters home to each student. It’s an approach we’ve also seen put into action at the District of Columbia Public Schools.
- Using Peer Mentoring to Change Postsecondary Advising in Broward County: Sometimes students need to hear from their peers in order to really buy into a message. Broward County Schools in Florida has used peer mentoring to great effect, and the BRACE Cadets also help with school programming.
Still with me? Thanks for reading! As a bonus, here’s three more of my favorite posts:
- 5 Considerations for Schools Working with Postsecondary Planning Partners
- OneGoal Postsecondary Readiness Rubrics Are Must-See for Every District, School
- RISE’s Postsecondary Tracker Offers Data Insights to Counselors
Next month we’ll have more information on how to freeze summer melt early. Summer melt begins way before summer starts, so it’s never too early to start thinking about it. In the meantime, I hope this post got some ideas going on different practices your district or school can adopt to help students be more successfu
Lots of districts and schools want to improve their college and career readiness efforts. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel!